Jean‐Baptiste‐Camille Corot 1796–1875
NG 3237 
Avignon from the West

Sarah Herring, 2019

Extracted from:
Sarah Herring, The Nineteenth Century French Paintings (London: National Gallery Company and Yale University Press, 2019).

1836

Oil on canvas, 34 × 73.2 cm

Signed bottom right in brown paint: COROT

Support

The dimensions given above are of the visible surface (the edges are covered by brown paper). The canvas is lined and the stretcher is presumably original. A label on the back bears a Gothic insignia including the letters ‘F’ or possibly ‘SF’, referring to James Staats Forbes, a former owner of the work, and the number ‘69’ (fig. 1). Similar labels have been found on other paintings in the National Gallery that are known to have come from his collection.¹

Materials and Technique²

The off‐white ground consists of lead white with traces of calcium, silica and barium‐based extenders.

The entire foreground has been painted over by the artist with a dark olive‐green paint. The X‐radiograph shows that the road on the right actually runs along the entire foreground as far as the houses, but has been largely eliminated by the khaki scrub‐like landscape (fig. 3).3 The prominent tree to the right and probably also the smaller group of trees left of centre were added during this reworking (fig. 2). Analysis of the stratigraphy and the pigments has shown that the dull green of the middle foreground is multi‐layered, with up to six layers over the ground, the lower layers belonging to the first idea for the composition and the upper two belonging to the reworking. Some of these layers contain cobalt blue, vermilion and French ultramarine blue. There are no traces of dirt or varnish between the layers, suggesting that there was no significant interval of time between the two campaigns of working. The upper paint layers are also stylistically of the same period. In the case of another view of the area painted in 1836, Villeneuve‐lès‐Avignon, Fort Saint‐André (fig. 4), Corot returned to the painting in about 1865–70. He again reworked the foreground, adding a clump of trees and some figures, but the additions are predominantly in his late style and the flickering touches of foliage and shimmering brushwork contrast with the tighter handling of the main picture.4 The sky contains cobalt blue and lead white with traces of opaque red.

The purplish‐blue hues depicting the trees in the middle distance consist predominantly of mixtures of cobalt blue, [page 85] [page 86] a madder‐type red lake, vermilion and lead white. Yellow earth and chrome yellow have also been identified on this painting in small quantities within paint mixtures.

The chemical composition of the cobalt blue pigment used here is cobalt aluminium phosphate. Technical study has shown that in the paintings of the Barbizon School this form of cobalt blue was relatively uncommon and this is perhaps an example of a particularly early use in Barbizon pictures.5

Medium analysis of the blue paint of the sky indicates that heat‐bodied walnut oil has been used as the binder, while heat‐bodied linseed oil has been identified in samples from the blue‐green of the central trees, the yellow‐green on the right‐hand edge and the olive green in the foreground.6

Conservation and Condition

NG 3237 was cleaned and restored by the National Gallery in 2000, when a substantially discoloured varnish was removed. The paint is generally in good condition. There is prominent craquelure throughout.

Discussion

Corot visited Avignon on a number of occasions: in May 1834; in July 1836, when he was accompanied by the orientalist painter Prosper Marilhat (1811–1847), his pupil Gaspard‐Jean Lacroix (1810–1878), and the painter Achille‐Adolphe Francey (1810–1892); and lastly in 1843. This view almost certainly dates from the 1836 visit. Moreau‐Nélaton describes the artists’ routine during their stay in this year: ‘The correspondence of Marilhat informs us that the companions installed themselves at Villeneuve‐lès‐Avignon “where are the most beautiful things to do.” “We rose at 4 in the morning”, he writes; “we worked just until 11.00 o’clock, then we returned to dine like devils … After dinner, we slept until 2 o’clock, and then we went back until night.”’7 During this visit Corot painted a number of plein‐air studies that depict either Avignon itself, or Villeneuve‐lès‐Avignon.8

NG 3237 depicts Avignon from Villeneuve‐lès‐Avignon, a small town on the other side of the Rhône and a favourite viewing spot for Avignon. Both branches of the Rhône are present on the left, with the Ile de Piot and the Ile de la Barthelasse visible in the middle. On the left are the remains of the Pont Saint‐Bénézet, the chapel being faintly delineated. To the right and above is the Rocher des Domes, where a public garden was created during the Second Empire. The stepped wall comes out from the former Bishop’s Palace, and is still standing. Of the two prominent towers, the one on the left is that of the cathedral of Notre‐Dame des Doms, now surmounted by a large statue of the Virgin dating from 1859. The tower on the right and the remaining buildings are part of the Papal Palace, which has been restored since Corot’s time. Further to the right the tower with a spire is that of the church of St Pierre, and next to it is the theatre, which was burnt down and rebuilt in 1848. To the right can be seen the tower of the Hôtel de Ville and further along still that of the church of St Agricol. To the right of the foreground tree is the spire of the church of St Didier. The ramparts that enclose the town are visible in places, with the gate (the Porte de l’Oulle) just to the left of the tower of the Hôtel de Ville. This was demolished in 1900. The hills visible to the right are the Lubéron.

It has been noted that the luminosity of these early studies of Avignon recall Corot’s plein‐air sketches painted during his first visit to Italy.9 In NG 3237 the town itself lies in the sun‐drenched middle ground, its brightness reinforced by the darker foreground. Corot has applied the paint in a similar manner to that of his Italian views, laying blocks of colour adjacent to each other. The architecture is presented as a series of light and dark planes, with windows rendered as dark squares and with little detailing of architectural features. This treatment is to be found in other views painted during this visit. In Villeneuve‐lès‐Avignon (fig. 6),10 Corot again presents the sunlit town perched in the middle distance beyond a dark foreground. The treatment of the architecture is similar, with the square forms of the buildings rendered as flat planes, deeply in shadow on the right sides. In general, this view is sketchier and less highly worked, but the most noticeable difference when compared with Avignon from the West is that the foreground of rough terrain is very loosely painted, with the ground showing through the thin brown paint. This thinly painted foreground is typical of Corot’s work of this period, when he often deliberately left his foregrounds less highly worked in order to focus the eye on the most important part of the picture, the middle ground.11 View of Saint‐Lô of 1833 (fig. 7) also features an undefined foreground, a pale thin brown layer rapidly brushed over the ground.12 It is very likely that the foreground of Avignon from the West was originally thinly painted in dark brown in a similar manner to the Indianapolis and Paris pictures. Fairly soon after completing the painting, and perhaps back in Paris, Corot decided to rework the foreground, at which point he also signed the picture.

Provenance

Stated by Robaut to have been lent by Corot in 1873 to his pupil Edouard Brandon (1831–1897), who probably copied it;13 sale F.J., Paris, 23 March 1877, lot 13, as Ville d’Italie, bought by Hector Brame (1831–1899) for 1,400 francs; subsequently with Gérard;14 in the collection of the Parisian financier Ernest May (1845–1925); his sale, Paris, 4 June 1890, lot 21, bought by Durand‐Ruel for 7,100 francs;15 in the collection of James Staats Forbes by 1896; bought by Sir Hugh Lane from the executors of Forbes in 1904;16 Lane Bequest 1917;17 at the Tate Gallery, London; transferred from the Tate Gallery to the National Gallery in 1950.

Exhibitions

Exhibited in the Boulevard Central, Brussels, possibly at number 7, Galerie des Augustins, September 1877 ;18 London 1896 (56); Dublin 1899 (7, lent by Forbes); Dublin 1904 (53); Dublin 1905a (84); Dublin 1905b (4) Belfast 1906 (20); Dublin 1908–13 (136); London 1917 (not numbered);19 London 1949–50 (180); London 1960 [page 89](not numbered); Edinburgh and London 1965 (30); Paris, Ottawa and New York 1996–7 (67); Copenhagen 2004–5 (29); Madrid and Ferrara 2005–6 (24, Madrid only); Dublin 2008 (not numbered); London 2009 (8); Verona 2009–10 (65); London 2013 (not numbered); London 2014 (not numbered). On loan to the Dublin City Gallery The Hugh Lane from 17 January 1961 to 26 July 1965, and from 19 January 1971 to 25 November 1975.

Literature

The Athenaeum, 15 February 1896, p. 223; Robaut 1905, no. 328; Phillips 1917, p. 7; Martin Wood 1917, pp. 53–9 (esp. p. 54); Meier‐Graefe 1930, p. 48 and pl. XXII; Bodkin 1932, pl. XVIII, 1956 edn, pl. XIX; Venturi 1941, pp. 146–7; Escholier 1943, II, pp. 148–9; Davies and Gould 1970, pp. 30–2; Fouchet 1975, p. 65; Leymarie 1979, pp. 60 –1; Selz 1988, p. 106; Pomarède, Pantazzi and Tinterow 1996, no. 67; White, Pilc and Kirby 1998, pp. 79–94 (esp. p. 90); Roy 1999, pp. 330 – 42 (esp. pp. 333 and 340); Herring 2001, pp. 77–89 (esp. pp. 85–6); Herring 2009, pp. 91–4 and 110–11.

Copy

According to Robaut, Corot lent NG 3237 to his friend and pupil Edouard Brandon, who probably copied it. No such painting was included in the Brandon sales of 19 March 1885 and 13–14 December 1897. A version of NG 3237 was lent by Ernest May’s son, Jacques Ernest May (1885–1970) to the following exhibitions: Corot, Paysages de France et Figures, Galerie Rosenberg, Paris, June–July 1930, no. 8, and Exhibition of French Art, 1200–1900, Royal Academy, London, 1932 , no. 306. In both cases its Robaut number and provenance were confused with that of NG 3237. When it was included in the Galerie Rosenberg exhibition a reproduction was published in L’Amour de l’Art, 1930, p. 331. An examination of the published photograph reveals it to be a copy of NG 3237. It follows NG 3237 closely, apart from a few details, but is much more deliberately and carefully painted, with harsher and more insistent outlines to the architecture. The foliage of the tree to the right is carefully painted, unlike that of NG 3237, where it is sketched in with a dry brush. It is possible that it is the copy by Brandon.20

Notes